Garrett Bradley recently won Sundance’s Directing Award: U.S. Documentary for “Time,” the story of a real-life superheroine fighting to free her incarcerated husband. Her next project, per Variety, will also follow a trailblazing, kick-ass woman. Bradley is directing a docuseries about tennis star Naomi Osaka for Netflix. The show will depict a “pivotal year” in Osaka’s career, from the U.S. Open in August 2019 to her 2020 Grand Slam tour to this summer’s Olympic Games in Tokyo.
No word on an official title or premiere date yet.
“Osaka became the first Asian player to reach the number one singles ranking after winning her first Grand Slam, the U.S. Open in 2018, and a second at the Australian Open in 2019,” the source notes. The Women’s Tennis Association currently ranks her as 10th in the world.
Osaka’s mother is Japanese and her father is Haitian; she emigrated from Japan to the States when she was a kid. “As well as spotlighting the professional pressure and hectic travel schedule, the series will examine Osaka’s journey of self-discovery,” Variety details. “It will travel with her to Japan to understand her connections with the country she represents, and the reflections of her multi-cultural identity.”
“To be able to tell my story and let people in during this big year, working with a team that really understands me, has been a rewarding experience,” Osaka said. “It won’t look like a traditional sports documentary, and I’m so excited to share it with everyone.”
Features “Cover Me” and “Below Dreams” and an episode of “Queen Sugar” are among Bradley’s other credits. She won a Sundance Jury Award and was shortlisted for an Oscar for her doc short “Alone.”
“Filmmakers are by nature fighters, and the occurrence of a challenge is a baked-in part of materializing anything in the world. Somehow it’s got to go from being an idea in your head to a tangible living thing in the world, and there’s no magic machine that does that for us,” Bradley told Women and Hollywood in an interview. “But that’s also what’s fun — that’s why we keep doing it over and over again. It’s problem-solving. It’s a test of yourself in every way possible.”
